Ted Seides – The Art of the Interview (EP.330)

25:12Now, if you're the listener and you're being triggered, which is exactly why I'm not good at this with my wife, if something comes up and I'm upset, it's next to impossible to quiet your mind. So take that as relationship, emotionally charged situation. When you get into a business context or interviewing a money manager. People said to me all the time, well, you're just interviewing for the podcast. So let me tell you a story about that. I started the podcast a couple of years ago by. I'm starting to figure out how to do this instinctively. And I was on the investment committee for a foundation in New York.

25:44And we had money with a long -term hedge fund I had known for many, many years and wanted to check in with them. And I said, oh, why don't I go meet with them? And I sat down with the founder and instinctively started having a conversation like I do on the podcast, hey, well, like what's going on in your life? And got into this open -ended questions and just listening to what he said. And in the course of like an hour and a half, I learned more about what was going on inside that organization than I had in 20 years of knowing him as an investor. So the techniques work very, very well in the context of an investment -related conversation.

26:21And one of the things that comes shining through in the techniques that you're using is psychological safety and comfort, which in a highly analytical industry, we want to go right at the heart of the issue and often don't take the time to set that table and create that context as you discussed. That seems really important if you want to actually have a deeper conversation that's likely more valuable for both sides. Yeah, I think it is. There's a piece of it that I don't know, let's say analytically, if it's right, which is this has to be tied to authenticity. I happen to be someone who likes lightheartedness, who likes making people feel comfortable.

27:04And I'm not 100 % sure if the things that I've learned and understood and work for me aren't just a form of confirmation bias. But I do think that creating psychological safety in whatever form that takes is incredibly important to getting people to be open. And again, if the goal is to gather information and learn from the people you're talking to, you need them to be open. One of the other things you said that I think is really important in terms of being authentic, you talked about validation, but I don't know if you use this word, but neutral validation where you're validating what someone's saying, but that doesn't mean you're agreeing with it.

27:42That means you're ensuring that they feel heard. And I think that feels important to retaining your authenticity because you're actually being very precise about that validation, not leading them to believe that you agree if you don't feel that you agree to create that connection. I think that must be one of the ways that you retain your authenticity by it being neutral validation, not false or exaggerated validation. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I haven't heard it phrased that way, but it sounds just right. Any other tips on interviewing before we shift to the public speaking side? There's one that's incredibly important that I think will come up both in public speaking and interviewing, and that's the value of feedback.

28:24When I did this interviewing managers for 20 -something years, if you think about what happens, you go into a room, you have the meeting, however well you've structured it, and you come out and you and your team sit there and say, what do we think? Is this someone we want to pursue? If we have money with them, do we want to keep our money? It's an evaluative conversation. In 20 -something years of doing this, I never once came out of one of those meetings and said, how did I perform as an interviewer? Now I start doing the podcast. And at first, I'm on my own. I record the interview. I then have to go through a transcript, send it to my producer.

29:04He edits it. I then listen to it again to make sure his edits are right. Then it comes out. And of course, it's live. I want to listen like everybody else. I have to listen to the conversation. I had three more times. And the reason why I understood, hey, I missed the question when I was talking to Andre Perald was because I was forced to create my own feedback loop. I was forced to listen to myself do this interview. And I did that hundreds of times. So one of the things that I coach the allocators and the Capital Allocators University to try to help them improve is create that feedback mechanism for how are you performing and your team, individuals on your team, in interviewing managers.

29:41You need to have a mechanism to understand, did I ask good questions? Or if it's a junior person with the senior person, why did you ask that question at that time? So you can learn to get better. Right. You're basically saying, treat the art of asking a high quality question as a superpower that needs to be constantly refined and improved, just like the art of investing. Well said. Okay, so why don't we shift to public speaking, and I'd probably separate two different kinds of public speaking. So one is facilitating a panel, and then the second one is giving a presentation or participating on a panel as a subject matter expert.

30:21Do you want to start on either side? Well, let's do panels. I think we probably want to turn this a little more of a conversation because you've done this as much as I have, and I want to get a chance to get your thoughts too. But let me start with a couple of thoughts on panels, and you can reflect on it. for panels are really hard. And just to paint that out, we've all been on panels. We've all been in the audience. If you're in the audience, it's really hard to pay attention to other people speaking for 40 minutes when the dopamine of your phone's in your pocket. You don't want to have traveled a long way to listen to a panel so you can check up on your emails.

30:50Most panels have too many people on them to have a rich conversation. Each of those people has their own agenda. And I'd like to say there's always one. So if you rank four people on a panel, By definition, one of them is the most talkative and will try to hog the stage unwittingly. They're just more extroverted than the other people. So it's really, really hard. I totally agree. Panels are very hard. In my experience, panels are hard because there's a risk that every panelist just has their talking points and it's three to four to five speeches. When panels are done poorly, it ends up being a collection of speeches versus a real dialogue conversation.

31:32Every time I've been asked to moderate a panel, let's say you have a prep call, somebody will say something to the effect of, well, let's make sure this is interactive. And I'm going to approximate the math, but roughly 100 % of the panels that I've been involved with are not interactive, despite the goal. So your thoughts on what does it take to bring out the panel that moves away from the canned sets of presentations? That's a really good question. If we step back from it, everyone's put so much time into this. Typically, panels are sourced with deep subject matter experts that the audience really wants to hear from, each of whom have a distinctive point of view.

32:15But there's a theater component, which is how do you make that really interesting? And then there's a substance component, which is how do you create a platform for them to get their point of view across in the most interesting possible way? And then there's the layer of a conversation that cuts across where they're learning from each other and creating something generative that is beyond and better than just many speeches. I'm a big music fan, so I almost think that music is a helpful metaphor on what a great panel looks like. There's a difference between panelists who are almost singing and independent song and panelists who are focused on building on each other's comments.

32:57And I think part of that is design and part of that is mindset. So if you really spend the time with the panelists to understand where they're coming from and you contract with them, that the whole point is to connect dots across the panel and everyone understands that's the design and that's the intention and that's what you're asking them to do. And then as a facilitator, to your earlier point, you're listening very actively, you've done enough preparation to understand who they are, what they care about, and what their point of view is, then you reframe the role of the facilitator as I'm the dot connector.

33:33I'm not just the talk show host. I'm actually very intentionally looking for what the thread is across the panelists. And I'm asking them to do that themselves. but if they don't, I'm working hard to draw that out because the thread is more interesting than the independent speeches. Capital Allocators is also brought to you by Morningstar. What if data wasn't just a bunch of raw numbers, but a clear and decisive language to help connect investment strategies with long -term investor needs in a constantly evolving market landscape? Morningstar created that language, bringing order and utility to insight -rich data so you can prepare for your next opportunity no matter the asset class or market.

34:21Visit wheredataspeaks .com to see what Morningstar data can do for you. You mentioned twice the preparation that goes into it. How have you found preparation works best to create the setting so that a panel slows as well as it can? The way that I think about preparation for a panel has three dimensions. So one is, what's your goal and structure? Like, what's the sweet spot of what will be most helpful to the audience that is currently in the minds of the participants? So that's number one. Number two is the chemistry. So actually taking the time in a prep call to build rapport and chemistry with the other panelists is really important, which means that you're understanding who they are, what they care about, what their personality is like, so that they're comfortable with the facilitator and with the other panelists so that you can get them into a highly productive space.

35:19And that starts in the prep call. And then most importantly, before you get on stage, being very intentional about getting that chemistry warmed up before you get on stage, that's unbelievably important. And then the third thing is about the substance of it. So there's no substitute for you actually really do need to do the research on the topic. you really do need to think about what's the most interesting thread for this particular audience that they're going to find helpful. Super spot on. I mean, I found one of the biggest problems is that you don't have the prep time. And if you really want to do it the right way, like you said, you need to know as the facilitator, the moderator of the panel, what each person's objective is.

35:59And you need to understand what they might say and how that fits in with the other panelists. And I get asked to do this a lot. There are times where I have time to figure that out, or I know the people in advance, so it speeds that up. And there are times where you're just winging it. Right. That is definitely true.

36:22I think that comes back to the more preparation, the better, the more intentional the preparation is. But I can't emphasize enough that the rapport really matters because people who are comfortable before they go on stage are going to be more interesting to listen to and are actually going to do a better job showcasing what's special about them and distinctive about them and what they have to say. The other thing is the more that you've prepared and you understand what people care about, if the flow isn't happening fast enough, then as a moderator, you cold call. And you can use a cold call very efficiently in a panel when you know what the person wants to say and wants to get across.

37:04And sometimes as a facilitator, if you're active listening, you can spot the moment better than they can. And you can spot it in a way that's generative, which to what has just been said. So I'll give you an example. So you're hearing a panelist start to get on a run on an issue that's adjacent to the issue that you know the person sitting next to them really wants to talk about. they're having trouble getting in. And you can use these little techniques and say, oh, wow, that is such a good point. And I know that your colleague right next to you has a lot of experience on that and actually has a really special point of view on that.

37:38Why don't we build on that point? And then that person is so, as you said earlier, delighted to be validated and seen and heard and recognized for what's special about them that they kind of light up. Then they go into that zone. and if you're listening hard, you're really focused on the goal and you've done even minimal preparation to understand what their point of view is, even if you just ask them to email it to you and you've worked hard to get chemistry even for five minutes before you get on stage and you see your role as a coach and dot connector, you're spotting those moments almost like a band leader and you're trying to nudge your band members to pick up the flow of the conversation.

38:22I want to build on that with a couple other little tips. One of my favorites, and let's put it under the umbrella of risk management. When you do a prep call, one of the things I always do is try to figure out who that one is. And so inevitably when you start, you'll go down the row. So sequencing it so the person who you think is going to speak the most speaks last and vice versa has a really nice way of balancing that out to begin with. It's a great little risk management tool. The other is body language. So what's hard about what you said is that when that person is going on an adjacency, they're in their own head.

38:57And sometimes, depending on the setting, you can lean in or forward or move your hand or something in a way that kind of catches their attention so that they know you're leaning towards a microphone. Oh yeah, wait, you might want to interject for whatever reason, can be super helpful. I want to wrap this up by saying I did a panel at Milken and ad hoc, I gave what I thought were the components of a good panel, which are all nice summary of what we said. The first is it has to be entertaining, which isn't always easy to do because a lot of the subject matter is dry. But as the moderator, if you can throw in a joke or a little jab or whatever it is, it just helps lighten that up.

39:36You have to have these actionable takeaways. Second, that substance has to be there. The third is that camaraderie balance between the speakers, which is really hard. And the fourth, which is my favorite one that almost nobody ever does, end early. I'll give you one additional fun tip on top of that. In ending early, throughout the panel, I'm writing the closing and kind of preparing for the closing. A very skilled closing has two components to it. One is very validating. I'm thinking of what is the gem that I knew that person wanted to get across at the beginning. If I've done a good job as a facilitator, I help them do that.

40:15So I can pre -plan this pretty well. Add a little bit of the color of what they said or use a funny word that they used that increases the stickiness of the idea for the audience. And then the very last point is like the coaching point for the audience of the point of the panel. Like we're doing in this conversation, pull out what's portable that is actually useful to that person that they could use the next day to be more effective. And particularly if you want to make sure you're ending early, having that structure in your head and knowing that it's going to be good because you kind of have it half written before the panel ensures you're feeling confident that you can actually interject pretty forcefully if we're risking overtime and close it out pretty tightly and pretty effectively.

41:00Okay, so why don't we shift gears and move to the public speaking side? So your audience is full of really smart people who are all the experts of their craft. And so throughout the year, probably every single person listening to your podcast is giving a presentation of some form to small groups, large groups. They're invited to sit on panels. The art of facilitating a panel is different from the art of participating on one. What have you learned that would be useful to folks in that space? Well, let's frame it out as a problem and a solution. So the problem with public speaking is that people get inside their own head.

41:37They get nervous. They worry about what other people are going to think. And the solution to that goes right to what you just said in the synthesis of the panel is to have a game plan. So there are components to the game plan. And I would start with something that I heard from a professor that coaches public speaking at Stanford, which is the audience wants you to succeed. All of these people that could feel scary if you're not accustomed to public speaking, they're actually on your side. Nobody wants to see a complete train wreck where somebody fumbles all over themselves. So there's a lot too when you get on stage, but back to what we originally said, practice is so important.

42:16So if people giving a presentation, actually delivering it out loud in front of your mirror at home, just minimizes your downside risk. There are challenges with that, right? If you get too stuck in your own words, you could lose your place, but actually practicing what you're going to say. Every time I've had an important presentation that I was going to give, I made sure at least I went over it in my head. And ideally, I said it out loud once or twice. And the more you do that, the better you're going to be. The other thing I like to tell people about the nervousness about public speaking is that we all practice public speaking every single day.

42:52Every time you're having a conversation with more than one person, you can view that as an opportunity to practice public speaking. Just to keep in mind that you don't have to be in front of 500 people to practice speaking in front of an audience. Totally agree. And I actually think it can be very useful to just realize, particularly for this audience, that the world has become a lot less formal. So the old days where people might be overcoached for presentations, I think have transitioned to something less formal and more authentic and that I think most audiences want to feel like there's not that much difference between having lunch with you and listening to you present in front of a couple hundred people.

43:36That's very different from years ago when people were taught that you had to actually present in a much more formal way. I think most audiences have a low tolerance for that. It's an ADD world these days and I think you got to be pretty tight with what you want to say. One of the most common blind spots I see is our colleagues in this industry are so substantive and so well -trained to be detail -oriented and so proud of their point of view because they've spent a lifetime researching the components of it that they want to share all of it. And I think one of the biggest coaching points is to take that body of knowledge and to narrow it and tailor it and simplify it for the audience so that the whole audience can follow it.

44:24And I think one of the most valuable lessons I've learned is the rule of threes. I think the rule of threes applies in communicating almost anything. And to your point, that applies in small conversations and big conversations. Most humans can only retain three things. That's pretty much the max. And I think in our industry, we're often the rule of 15 or 20 or 25 because we're passionate about all those items. If you structure it and bucket it in three, it's much easier for your audience to digest it. And then you can double click into those components and you might actually hit all 25 points, but the person can process it much more effectively if you go one step at a time into the depth versus what you often see, which is I'm just going to dive into the detail.

45:12That rule of three reminds me of a little acronym I had heard, which is the age of a presentation, AGE. The rule of three being the goal. What are you trying to get across? And using the rule of three is a really effective way of getting to the G in age. The A is audience. So many people, when they go to give a presentation, say, this is my presentation I am delivering to you. The problem is you have an audience and the presentation should be the audience that you're delivering to them for their benefit. It may only be a change in frame of mind, but a lot of times you think about a panel, I want to get my pitch across.

45:53Okay, well, what do they want to hear? Back to what you said before, it'll still allow me to get my pitch across, but it can come across in a way that is more thoughtful, more expressive of what someone in that audience wants to hear. So that's audience goal. And the last is environment. The idea being, it's very different if it's 500 people where there's five people in your investment committee meeting. Like one, you have to project, you have to be animated, all these things to keep people engaged. The other, it's a much more subdued, inclusive type conversation. You just made a really profound point in an industry full of subject matter experts who we've spent our entire careers preparing our point of view on a particular topic.

46:36When you're presenting, you have to invert that mindset from expressing yourself to serving the audience. And a great salesperson knows that. There's a difference between your pitch and actually working back from the psychology of the audience and tailoring it as such, if your goal is to influence that audience. I think there's something about entering any public speaking situation and going deep into the audience mindset, not just about the content. It's the difference between audience and content. Let's take the context of you're sitting on a panel. Are there any things you found for when you were sitting on a panel that make for your presentation to be effective?

47:22You know, I'll make a similar point to the facilitation one. Like the other side of it is when I'm a panelist, I want to be very cognizant of the build and the thread. I go into a panel knowing on that topic that I've prepared and I think I have some interesting thoughts to share. But the fun part of it is the active listening part, listening to what the people are saying. If I'm listening carefully, I'll actually try to use the tactic of building upon a specific point someone has just made, it builds goodwill with my fellow panelists, and it actually helps keep it informal. One of my favorite ones came from a guest a number of years ago, I named Ben Foreman, the crypto fund, Parify.

48:02He said, the attention span of an audience is two to four minutes. Answering a question, two to four minutes. And with podcast, we have timestamps. I can see two to four minutes is like three or four sentences, full sentences. Gives you plenty of time to flesh out a thought. And where people run into problems, is their joiner words. Finish up a thought and they say, and they go into another. So, and different people have different ones, but you go one thought to the next thought to the next thought, and then somewhere along the way, you lose people. So to try to stay confined into the thought applicable for that thread, super important.

48:40That's really good. Keep it tight. One other point I'd love for you to unpack is just the anxiety of public speaking. I think every one of us has anxiety before a big presentation that's high stakes for your career or a big audience. In some ways, it almost doesn't matter how much experience you have. I think most people you speak with who do a lot of presenting doesn't actually go away. How do you manage that? A couple of tips that I've picked up along the way. The first is to acknowledge that you're nervous. It actually makes sense to be nervous in that setting. Maybe it's important. Maybe like this is your reputation.

49:18That's okay. That's a natural feeling in the moment. The next I would say is being present. So think of this as a form of meditation. When you're nervous, if you try to quickly unpack where the nerves are coming from, not analyze it saying, oh, I'm nervous because of this, that, but gosh, there's a little butterfly in my stomach right now. I just took a breath, an out breath. Oh, someone else is speaking before me. Let me actually listen to what they're saying so I get out of my head. There's a bunch of little ways that you can bring yourself present because if you're truly present in the moment, you won't be nervous.

49:54The nerves are coming from thoughts about something threatening, you know, fight or flight type response. So that's the second. And the third comes from what people say when they're nervous. And I'd say that sometimes they get tongue -tied. More often, we all have verbal fillers, ums, likes, what we can practice is in any sentence, I'm going to do this right now, about 5 % of my brain is thinking about making sure that I'm spacing out my words so that I don't say um, like, uh, uh, while I'm not doing that. And if you practice it, it's not that anyone will be perfect, but practicing it and saying, okay, I'm not fully present with you because I have to spend time in this moment right now, making sure that I don't say a verbal filler, you will get better at saying fewer verbal fillers over time.

50:45That's a gift if we can all put that into practice. Well, go ahead and try it. I need to speak much more slowly. One other lesson I've learned just on the anxiety point or that I found helpful. I once watched an interview of Frank Sinatra in his later years describe the fact that after having performed at the highest levels and been considered the best singer of his era, he felt nervous every single time he got on stage. And that made me feel a lot better. Because for the master of his craft to say that and to say, oh, well, the anxiety doesn't go away. This is just about having a technique to channel it.

51:24Frank would talk about, it doesn't bother me that I have it because it's fuel. So I just want to convert it. And so he talked about his techniques, walking onto the stage, feeling that and needing to shift. So I think it's always a question of how do you shift? And so for me as a public speaker, when I walk on stage and I feel that Sinatra moment, I want to use humor. I want to acknowledge someone in the crowd. I want to find some self -deprecation. I want to find some technique to shift from the natural anxiety of any high stakes moment into my more authentic space. I've tried a number of things over the years.

52:01But the Sinatra rule kind of keeps me focused on, okay, it's okay. You can accept that it's normal and it's just another technique that's needed in your repertoire. I've heard from time to time about people saying if you're giving a big presentation to focus on one person so that you're just talking to them. Is that something that you've found helpful? I actually do find that one helpful. I find it helpful in a slightly different way. When I'm on stage, my goal is for the audience to feel that they're sitting with me in my office talking to me one -on -one. So I try to replicate the same tone and style.

52:36That goal of wanting it to feel the same way, I completely agree with. and I don't just focus on someone in the audience. I'm a very interactive person and I think in today's world, people are not that interested in one -way communication. I'll actually walk out on stage and try to acknowledge someone in the audience or thank someone, not just look at them, but to interact with them as a way to, just like the Sinatra rule, just kind of get myself into the mode that I'm shooting for. Any other tips, any other things across what we've been chatting about? I really like what you said earlier about the arc of the story.

53:17And I'd actually turn it back to you and say, let's unpack that because I think there's something to that, that substantive investors want to get across the content, but audiences and the theatrical element is almost like a television show or a movie or a novel, like there's an arc and there's probably a lot for us to learn from that. I'm no expert at it. So So I'll throw out a few things that I've heard. I had a wonderful storyteller, a guy named Neil Ford, used to be a Saatchi and Saatchi executive on the podcast earlier this year and really unpacked a story or two from him. The first part is you have to capture people's attention at the beginning.

53:56So it could be humor. It could be you're telling a story that you leave a cliffhanger and you're going to wait until the very end of the presentation to deliver the back part of that story. But there's something upfront that's your level of energy and what you're saying. So some combination of the Maya Angelou, it's not what you said, it's how you made people feel. And that's super important right up front. From there, the arc of a story is usually this happened, which led to this, but then that happened, which caused that, which caused this to happen. And as a result of that, this happened. And so it's a series of conjoined scenes that don't necessarily go in a linear path.

54:37And then, as you said, you want to wrap it up in a rule of three. What did we learn from this? Thoughts? I completely agree. And I share your technique that it's almost like a three -act play. The beginning is the setup, which is what's the situation and what are you trying to get done? The middle act of the play is there's some tension or some problem to be solved. So like, what are we chasing? What's the conflict, the issue at hand? And then the resolution. And I think the good part about the resolution is go back to honoring the audience. So always end on what's useful to them. So let's do summary wraps.

55:13I want to start because it's top of mind. Threads across interviewing public speaking, both panels and public speaking. Preparation. Can't underscore how important it is, but it's got to be the appropriate level of preparation. If it's too much, you can get too wet at it. being present in the moment, listening, active listening, what that means, understanding who the audience is, summing up, and then afterwards, a feedback loop. Thoughts? I think you nailed it. I would just respond to that great list just saying, you have an audience and we have an industry full of really, really deep experts in the art and science of investing.

55:56And I think what you've shared with us today is the art and science of interviewing and how building out that craft is only additive to the craft of investing. And in some ways, I think a lot of people approach interviewing as a, how hard could it be? Of course, I'm good at this. I'm an expert. And I think the takeaway from this discussion is it's actually pretty hard. So good news, bad news. So the bad news is in order to become great at interviewing, it is really hard and it takes years to master. The good news is you've elucidated today some very specific concrete practices that people can start using very quickly.

56:41And then I think to your feedback loop point, just like investing, it's iterative. So every time you do it, you can get a little bit better as long as you're reflective and you're getting the feedback so that V2, V3, V4 just gets better and better and better, which as listeners of your podcast, we know that your episodes just get better and better and better. I think it would only be fair to pose the same questions to you that you tend to pose to the rest of us. So let's give it a shot. All right. I haven't done this in a while. So Ted, what is your favorite hobby or activity outside of work and family?

57:17I love playing tennis. I grew up playing tennis, played in high school, played in my 20s. Dave Swenson was my doubles partner at the New Haven Lawn Club. And then I didn't play for 20 years. I moved to New York and there aren't as many courts in New York. And I met my wife just under five years ago. She's a big tennis player. And I got back into it. And it is my absolute favorite thing to do. What did you dream about doing when you were a kid? The first job I remember thinking I wanted was to be a math teacher. I had a 11th grade teacher named Mr. Cantor, and I remember saying to him in a yearbook, you've inspired me to be a math teacher.

57:55I loved math. Of course, owning the Yankees was very attractive to me, and my friends at Arctos have made that, not the Yankees, but have made that, so I own a few grains of dirt in a whole bunch of different ballparks around the country. I think you've made both dreams come true then because you're doing a form of math teaching in this podcast. What's your biggest investment pet peeve? It's when people talk about investing in absolutes as if they're certain they're right about something when the entire investment world, in fact, life itself is probability based. That sometimes drives me absolutely nuts because I'm not someone who intuitively thinks that I'm right all the time.

58:37I just kind of hedge my own brain knowing that there are other outcomes than the one that I might be pretty certain about at any point in time. When Ted hears certainty, he gets very suspicious. What's one investment mistake that you learned from and will never make again? In my early 20s at Yale, we were allowed to invest in stocks with the right approvals. And Yale's managers back then, probably still today, had a lot of very concentrated portfolios, really sought to have managers that knew their stocks better than anyone else. And I heard this presentation from a guy who invested in energy stocks.

59:13His whole portfolio was like three or four names. And his newest name, I just was like, this is an incredible story. And so I asked David and Dean and got approval and I bought the stock and it was a big deal for me. And within three or four months, the company went bankrupt. So at the time, I'm probably done with CFA level two, maybe three. And then I went and looked at the balance sheet and saw in this cyclical business, the company had like four turns of debt on it. And it was a one -on -one mistake, but I just took for granted that this guy who is a super successful manager who knew the space, if he thought it was a great stock, it had to be a great stock.

59:50I was never going to do the research that he could do on the name, but I could have common since checked that. And so it was a great lesson that you have to do your own work. And whatever that means in a different situation, you can't just take for granted, even with someone who was perfectly aligned. He had so much of his own capital in this name and he missed something that was totally obvious. Which two people had the biggest impact on your professional life? Dave Swenson is the easy and by far number one. He was my first boss, my first mentor, learn more from him than anyone else my entire career.

1:00:26That's super easy. The second one's harder because the path I took post that, I didn't really have direct mentors in the way that I did with David. And I would say, if I were picking a second one, and it's not intuitive, we've only been together four and a half years, it would definitely be my wife, Vanessa, my second wife, because her strengths of discernment, her eye for everything that has to do with marketing and messaging and her ability to be incredibly positive, even in the face of challenge, has been a huge boon for me over the last couple of years as this went from something on the side to the core of what I'm doing.

1:01:09And there's no way I could have done all this without outer. What was the best advice you ever received and what was the context it came to you? I never heard the phrase, do what you love until I went to business school at HBS. So I was 27 years old before I'd ever heard that what you could do is something tied to something that you're interested in. There are a lot of different expressions of it. Andy Golden, who's just retiring from Princeton, says, follow your like. You can't know at a certain age what you love, but you might know you're interested in something. But the idea of spending your time doing something that just innately you enjoy, like what I tell people now is I really, I don't work anymore.

1:01:48I may spend 60, 70 hours a week doing it, but there's almost not a minute of it that feels like work. Like I get out of bed in the morning, whether it's I'm editing a podcast or I'm getting to prepare to have a conversation or I'm talking to friends about investing or talking to a manager I've invested with, whatever it is, it's so much fun for me, even more so than that prior part of my career. And so I didn't learn that for a while. I mean, I think that's late in life to have heard that. I would say it's never too late. I think the podcast started, I was 48 when the podcast started, so 47. So it's never too late to kind of keep figuring out what that is.

1:02:24Your passion for it comes shining through, that's for sure. Finally, the last one, what life lesson have you learned that you wish you knew a lot earlier in your life? You can't do it alone. There's the phrase, if you want to go faster yourself, if you want to go far, go with others. For whatever reason in my upbringing, I had an innate belief that I had to achieve everything on my own. And it wasn't until much later in life. And I would even say in this iteration, these last six or seven years of the podcast, where so much of what has worked comes from the power of having different partners. So a bunch of joint ventures with some people who are some of my closest friends in the business, the people on my team, not trying to feel like I have to be the one that has the answer.

1:03:09And if I think I have the answer to my own skepticism, better check with somebody else before I just rush and do it. So that's probably the one I wish I had learned a long, long time ago. Fabulous. Well, listen, Ted, it's been a pleasure turning the tables on you to interview the interviewer about interviewing. Thank you for having me. Matt, thanks for the idea to do this. And thanks for breaking this up into part interview and part conversation because I certainly got a lot out of that part of it too. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the show. If you like what you heard, hop on our website at CapitalAllocators .com where you can access past shows, join our mailing list, and sign up for premium content.

1:03:49Have a good one and see you next time.

1:03:56New Dimensions Shelley